Fat Bob

Diary

They called him Fat Bob before he'd earned an inch of it, and by the time he was hauling himself across the palace roof tiles at midnight, gut first, he'd spent decades making the name look prophetic. The plan was simple: drop in on some sleeping degens who'd aped their whole bag into a floor sweep, relieve them of their winnings, vanish like a proper shadow warrior of old. Instead his foot found a loose shingle, his hand found the gutter wrong, and his pinky finger found a new and unflattering angle, snapping with a pop that echoed louder than any war drum he remembered from his samurai days. He sat there on the ridge line, blunt smoldering in his good hand, nursing the busted finger and feeling nothing but a deep civic disappointment, robbery apparently having joined swordsmanship on the long list of disciplines he no longer had the discipline for. Rugged by his own roof, he climbed down slower than he climbed up, telling himself tomorrow he'd train properly, stretch, meditate, maybe not smoke weed before cat burglary, though everyone within earshot already knew better than to believe him.”